Car Stereo advice

No fries

No fries

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2005
Location
Fort Mill
Ok my son wants a sub woofer, new head unit and replace stock speakers in an 05 chevy extended cab. $400 to $600 budget. Lower the better. I haven't looked into aftermarket audio since 1992. I know a ton has changed. What is your opinion, brand, size, wattage, amp needed etc ? Nothing outrageous just better sounding on a kids budget.

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Don’t waste time or money on the Dual brand. I’m a big fan of Kenwood and Alpine. You can save money on the subs/amp buying used. The stuff never holds its value. I had a Kenwood shallow mount carbon fiber 12 and truck box with a 1000 watt amp that was about $500 new. Sold it for $75.
A good head unit makes a big difference. I hooked up a system years ago for a buddy, it sounded awful and wasn’t clear, the bass was muffled and treble was off. He had bought a Dual head unit, so we took it back and got a Sony and it sounded great.

Personally don’t care for all the bass anymore but planning to put new speakers and a double din Kenwood with CarPlay in my tow rig. Then I can stream Pandora thru Bluetooth, and use the Nav on my phone on the radio screen.
 
crutchfield is a great way to shop for fitment, and you can shop other places for cheaper prices on the model you choose. if you want touch screen Nav, you need to get a nice one otherwise the trade off is very subpar touch calibration (making typing an address a long endeavor).

Look at the output of the radio. Dont get something so massive its going to blow the stock speakers in the doors the first time he turns it up super loud. know the ratings of your door/dash speakers and tally up the numbers so you know what youre getting into.

kicker and alot of the staple brands are horrible these days. sundown audio is the new tech

a 500 watt amp and single 10 or 12 can give alot of bass that can easily be heard by nearby vehicles
 
awheelterd said:
Tell him to figure it out himself.

He'll learn a lot. Or catch his truck on fire.

That's all I've got :lol:
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this, all day long

One piece of advice though. Aside from all the technical crap re: audio specs etc, watch out for how you interact with the unit.
The big thing now that's becoming common is fancy touch screen displays where the whole the unit face is just a touch screen. Don't fall into that trap.

This is neat and sexy and lets the mfr make all kinds of super flexible display options, GUIs etc so the thing is basically programmable.
The MAJOR problem that nobody thinks about is that all that graphically-driven, finger-touch stuff is very hard to work with in any kind of a safe manner WHILE DRIVING. Auto MFRs put a lot of time and thought into how radio head units are laid out so they're easy to use w/ just a few knobs, even having bumps on buttons and stuff so you can feel them w/o looking. The aftermarket radio folks don't seem to care as much, because they just need to sell units that look snazzy.

I bring all this up to point out that a complex fancy interactive thing in the hands of a young driver can be really dangerous.
I bought and put in a fancy head unit within 2 weeks of buying our Mazda5, and it didn't take longer before I realized how much I hated it b/c I had to stop driving to change music, which made it very tempting to try and do anyway. It's effectively the same as texting and driving.
 
We have a couple of pioneers with polk speakers in the Jeeps. I don't know which one I don't like, but my guess is it's the Polks. The pioneers are a pain in the ass to use, too. The stock stereo in the Dodge sounds better and is simple to use. That's my vote, but to replicate it would probably cost you a grand (separates) and that's without a subwoofer.
 
I'd try to hit up Craigslist or FB Marketplace for an under-the-seat sub box to go in the back. As was mentioned earlier, a single 10 or 12 would be good with a 500 watt amp. I've always had good luck with Pioneer head units...I know they make better ones, but for 150 or less, they've always done me well. With it being an 05, it may need the door chime interface, but I'm not sure. Crutchfield would definitely let you know if it needs one. If I'm not mistaken, the speakers are an odd size, so they may not have drop in replacements...who knows?

I'm actually really glad this thread popped up. I've been meaning to replace the factory speakers in my 02 HD since I got it and just keep forgetting about it. Here soon I'll be putting new carpet in it and since all of the interior will be out I'm going to do the headliner too. Might as well pull all the door panels and put in some new speakers too!
 
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RatLabGuy said:
this, all day long

One piece of advice though. Aside from all the technical crap re: audio specs etc, watch out for how you interact with the unit.
The big thing now that's becoming common is fancy touch screen displays where the whole the unit face is just a touch screen. Don't fall into that trap.

This is neat and sexy and lets the mfr make all kinds of super flexible display options, GUIs etc so the thing is basically programmable.
The MAJOR problem that nobody thinks about is that all that graphically-driven, finger-touch stuff is very hard to work with in any kind of a safe manner WHILE DRIVING. Auto MFRs put a lot of time and thought into how radio head units are laid out so they're easy to use w/ just a few knobs, even having bumps on buttons and stuff so you can feel them w/o looking. The aftermarket radio folks don't seem to care as much, because they just need to sell units that look snazzy.

I bring all this up to point out that a complex fancy interactive thing in the hands of a young driver can be really dangerous.
I bought and put in a fancy head unit within 2 weeks of buying our Mazda5, and it didn't take longer before I realized how much I hated it b/c I had to stop driving to change music, which made it very tempting to try and do anyway. It's effectively the same as texting and driving.
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Thanks never thought of that, he was thinking about the touch screen bling. Makes sense about ease of use. That was one thing I always looked for on remotes that buttons could be learned by touch. I hate the old every button is the same size remotes.
Good info, keep it comming.

So, used stuff doesn't keep it's value, but does it last and I don't want to get screwed.

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Remotes for head units are stupid IMO. Is he going to have the seat leaned so far back that he can’t reach the radio? A remote is one more thing to be playing with while driving. Drop it in the floor and you’re trying to grab it while driving instead of just reaching up and turning the volume down.

I like the KISS on car audio.
 
No fries said:
Thanks never thought of that, he was thinking about the touch screen bling. Makes sense about ease of use. That was one thing I always looked for on remotes that buttons could be learned by touch. I hate the old every button is the same size remotes.
Good info, keep it comming.

So, used stuff doesn't keep it's value, but does it last and I don't want to get screwed.

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How old is he ? Chances are he'll sell or wreck the car before anything wears out.
On that note - remember it's easy to pull a sub when you wreck or sell a car. Head units not so much.
 
If you’re going with a touch screen double din consider getting a unit with CarPlay or the Android equivalent. (Screen mirroring). Then Pandora, stored music on phone and nav all work from the head unit. This also means Nav is always up to date rather than needing to update the software on the unit with a disc or laptop.

Buying used subs/amp isn’t bad. It either works or it doesn’t most of the time. The key is tuning it and making adjustments for the best sound. More is not always better. I agree that one good 12 or 10 will be plenty. I think you get a deeper bass and tone from a 12 vs a 10 but the difference is minimal. Easier to package a 10 under/behind the rear seat and someone makes a box specifically for that truck I’m sure.
 
We got got Jake a dual din kenwood CD player w a bunch of options,a set of 10 inch kicker boxes and a kicker amp and only had about $600 or so in it.All his stuff came from Best buy and was on sale.I was in to car stereo back in the late 80's/early 90's and that same stuff would have been $1000 plus back then.Car stereo now is waaay cheap compared to what it use to be.
 
RatLabGuy said:
How old is he ? Chances are he'll sell or wreck the car before anything wears out.
On that note - remember it's easy to pull a sub when you wreck or sell a car. Head units not so much.
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I was talking about home stero remotes. He will be 18 in July, he has already totaled one 2000. Hopefully no more. So how do you tune them? That is what I know nothing about and what goes with what. How big an amp to push the sub or subs. Is 2 8 or 10 inch better than a 12? He wants 2 12's because of what he has heard in friends trucks. But I suspect they didn't know what was going on either.

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RatLabGuy said:
How old is he ? Chances are he'll sell or wreck the car before anything wears out.
On that note - remember it's easy to pull a sub when you wreck or sell a car. Head units not so much.
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You can have the head unit out of a 99-06 GM truck in less than two minutes and with no tools.
 
In a pickup cab a single well tuned 12 in the Appropriately sized box is more than enough to be loud beyond the level of safely being on the road (not hearing emergency vehicles etc.)
 
Croatan_Kid said:
You can have the head unit out of a 99-06 GM truck in less than two minutes and with no tools.
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ever bought a double din dash bezel for a 02 back 1500??? $$$$.
 
83oldyoda4x4 said:
Im a big fan of polk speakers cheap and take a lot of abuse. I would run a 4 channel and bridge the last 2 channels to a sub.
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So for a 4 channel, 2 channels run standard 4 speaker locations and the other 2 run the sub with an amp I presume?

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Personally i would just replace the front 2 speakers and add a sub. so 2 channels for the the front 2 speakers and bridge the last 2 channels for the sub.

https://www.amazon.com/Polk-DB652-UltraMarine-Dynamic-Speakers/dp/B01EXOTD56/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1520879685&sr=8-5&keywords=polk+6.5+car+speakers&dpID=61-wzJ3bz1L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-d...pID=411ofcO1WYL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

I ran a kicker zx350.4 i already had, but the Rockford 400-4 is nice as well
 
Crutchfield. Good prices and you'll get it the next day with ground shipping because its Charlottesville-based.

Pioneer, Alpine, Clarion, Kenwood for head units. Any quality brand amp will work fine, don't bother with any brand you haven't heard of before.
 
77GreenMachine said:
If you’re going with a touch screen double din consider getting a unit with CarPlay or the Android equivalent. (Screen mirroring). Then Pandora, stored music on phone and nav all work from the head unit. This also means Nav is always up to date rather than needing to update the software on the unit with a disc or laptop.
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I had a Kenwood DDX9902S head unit with Apple Carplay and Android Auto. I'm an Android guy, but I'll say this: Android Auto sucked on this headunit and was always freezing and crashing and not connecting. Apply Carplay was super smooth and reliable. It's a really cool feature, but as of 2017, Android Auto still has some issues to work out.

And this.
Fabrik8 said:
Crutchfield. Good prices and you'll get it the next day with ground shipping because its Charlottesville-based.

Pioneer, Alpine, Clarion, Kenwood for head units. Any quality brand amp will work fine, don't bother with any brand you haven't heard of before.
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Crutchfield is AWESOME on service and knowledge, and still competitive on price.
 
No fries said:
How big an amp to push the sub or subs. Is 2 8 or 10 inch better than a 12? He wants 2 12's because of what he has heard in friends trucks. But I suspect they didn't know what was going on either.

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Re: amp size - when you get the sub it will have specs to tell you how much wattage you need. You always want the amp to be > what is needed. Lots of info on Crutchfield about this.
Re: speakers, its all about the physics, and doing it "right" gets complicated. But the important gist is that the larger the diameter, the deeper (lower frequency) it can typically handle as volume. but they begin to suck at high frequencies, so people add small speakers and a crossover to handle that.
The thing is though that the real bass sound comes from the vibration/echo of what is inclosing the speaker, and it has to be able to move as much air in and out as is needed for the speaker baffle. So a properly shaped/designed enclosure really matters.
A 12" speaker is huge and a proper enclosure will be really big. Takes up a ton of space.

Again... 18 y/o kid... let him figure it out and hopefully he won't wreck the truck right after doing all this.
 
IMHO... use Crutchfield for fitment/model #s... then purchase at 20%-30% of new on FB Marketplace... I see that junk constantly from kiddie punks sinking $1000s into car audio for a $500 rig that dies and need the funds for a new whip
 
I would budget $2-300 for a head unit. I bought a $110 for much truck and that thing is awful.
 
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